"Des Lebens Sonnenschein"

"If good beer were readily obtainable we would, I think, gradually get away from the high tension at which boys of today are living and return to the simpler and easier social relaxation that, in the past, was associated with college life."--Clarence Whittlesey Mendell, dean of Yale College, Jan. 11, 1932.

Last week, with Beer at their gates, U. S. college authorities and students were busily concerned with planning and regulating "simpler and easier social relaxation."

P: One of the country's pleasantest settings for beer-drinking in oldtime style is at the University of Wisconsin. In 1928 a $1,250,000 Memorial Union was built, and in its basement a genuine Altdeutscher Rathskeller. In the old days, Wisconsin beer-drinkers frequented the Hausmann brewery in Madison. Its bar is now in the new Rathskeller, a strictly masculine sanctuary on whose walls are painted Heidelberg students brandishing steins, a fat monk on a wine cask, a bartender with Speise-und-Getraenke Karten, a motto: Des Lebens Sonnenschein ist trinken, lieben, froehlich sein ("Life's sunshine is to drink, to love, to be merry"). At first the Rathskeller had another bit of Munich realism -- a six-inch layer of sawdust on the floor -- but it got in people's shoes, was removed. Last week the Rathskeller was as usual selling .5% beer and chocolate milk shakes, while students clamored for 3.2% beer as soon as possible. President Fred H. Clausen of the University Board of Regents was against it on the grounds that Repeal might be endangered. Downing a glass of milk in the Rathskeller he said : "I don't believe beer will be sold here."

Minus its bar, Hausmann's has gone on selling near-beer, as has oldtime Fauerbach's. Both will step it up. Madison's Silver Dollar Bar is gone, but not Hammacher's where freshmen had to "cross the Rubicon"-- down a two-quart stein in the tradition, without the sabre-flourishes and "prosits," of the salamander ceremony still performed by German Studentenkorps.

P: An old law was found forbidding sale of spirits anywhere within two miles of "Farmer's High School" -- now Pennsylvania State College. No-beer rulings were handed down by the presidents of Lafayette, Muhlenberg, Lehigh and the University of Pennsylvania.

P: Famed among Michiganders is an old song:

I want to go back to Michigan, To dear Ann Arbor town, Back to Joe's and The Orient. . . .

Joe's has been padlocked for two years and The Orient is now a poolroom for town loafers. Michiganders will have to walk three blocks west to drink their beer: an Ann Arbor ordinance forbids liquor-selling on the campus side of Division Street. Law enforcement is strict in Washtenaw County; students are accustomed to slip over to farmhouse speakeasies in Wayne County. The Mill, Dad's and Red and Bill's now fear a loss of trade.

P: Harvard University had its own brewhouse from 1674 until the early 19th Century, reported Historian Samuel Eliot Morison last week. At "bevers" (snack & drink times, 6:30 a. m. and 11 a. m.) students got their tankards filled by the college butler at the buttery hatch. At commons a half-pint was included in the price. Observed salty Historian Morison: "What a rush there must have been to the buttery hatch after morning prayers! . . . A draught of good, sound beer, properly brewed and aged, is grateful to an empty stomach of a cold morning, or, for that matter, at any time of day, Winter or Summer." Last week Harvard students, led to believe that college authorities have an open mind on the subject, voted six-to-one to have beer served with meals in Commons. But most people thought that the Medical and Business Schools (on the Boston side of the Charles River) would be the only ones to do it. Cambridge has been dry for 46 years. Also, the proposed Massachusetts beer bill prohibits sales to minors.

Many Harvard clubs, notably patrician Porcellian, disdained beer before Prohibition, drank champagne-&-porter or strange fruit punches. Nonetheless, as elsewhere, some pewter tankards (embellished with club seals) will be filled with beer instead of Prohibition gin-&-gingerale; for Harvardmen recall that many a fine old beer-song like "Solomon Levi" and "The Lone Fishball" originated in Cambridge.

P: Charlottesville, Va. has no speakeasies. Virginia will get no beer unless the next legislature repeals a pre-Prohibition Dry law. Until then the University of Virginia, high in rank as a drinking college, will continue to drink corn liquor and mountain rye.

P: At Notre Dame University 1,000 students signed total abstinence pledges.

P: We'll all have drinks at Theodore Zinck's

When we get back next fall. So sings Cornell University. But Zinck, famed oldtime saloonkeeper, is dead. The Jag Car (stripped-down trolley), which used to bring the last late group of students from downtown Ithaca up to the campus, exists no more. Closed is "The Senate." But two other oldtime saloons will open if law permits--the Dutch Kitchen in the Ithaca Hotel and the Alhambra. A taproom may be installed in Cornell's Willard Straight Hall (student union) which may attract some trade from the more spirituous Pastime Club, Judd's, and the Cat-Tail Club which runs free taxis to its doors.

P: Stanford University and the University of Oregon are surrounded by restricted areas but students may drink beer at their discretion. At Williams College, under an old rule, they may not; students will continue to do their drinking at nearby North Adams, Mass.

P: Famed for its white "beer-suits" worn by seniors in the Spring, Princeton University will once more drink beer downstairs at the Nassau Inn, which has installed a 44-ft. bar, dusted off old tabletops with carved initials, provided hooks in the ceiling for the steins of each & every senior. George, a popular speakeasy keeper, will open a beer garden in nearby Kingston, N. J. and "do it legal." As in other colleges, Princeton officials are timid about committing themselves to serve, or not to serve, in dining hall. So too at Yale, which has cultivated a mushroom growth of speakeasies in the past few years. Still open is old Tuttle's, but Yalemen miss the quavering tenor of "Ed" Moriarity who died last year. High-priced Mory's has fallen off in popularity, will seek to recoup with legal beer. Hash-houses have put in bars; new places like The Tavern have been opened.

P: At Union College (Schenectady, N. Y.) at commencement time, seniors gather in Jackson's Gardens on the campus, drink water from a jug passed around by the class Keeper of the Jug. Beer may be substituted. Louis Nicholaus' German Beer Garten, founded 35 years ago, hopes to get back its oldtime trade. But Wiencke's, famed in Union songs, is not so respectable as once it was.

P: Colleges which planned to allow beer had a distinguished example. Said Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt last week: "When it is legal to serve beer in any government house, it will naturally be proper to do so . . . at the White House. . . ."

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